The Scent Of Spilled Oil
by phoenix.rises.from.the.flames
Summary: "I listened outside your cell door every night before I sent you back to Eddis." A look at one of those nights when the Queen listened to the Thief.


Disclaimer: I do not own in any way _The Thief, The Queen of Attolia_ or any other books in the series.

His voice is a bare thread of sound in the darkness. "_Oxe harbrea sacrus vax dragga onus savonus sophos at ere . . . oxe harbrea vax dragga onus savonus sophos at ere_ . . . "

She stands outside his cell, dressed in an evening gown of royal blue embroidered with Attolian lilies, the rubies in her coronet glimmering in the flickering torchlight. She's not sure why she refused the sage-green gown she wore two evenings previous, snapping at Chloe when the poor girl had offered it, knowing it was one of her favourites, knowing as all her attendants knew that she cared very little if she wore the same gown several times in a week.

She's not sure why she's standing outside his cell either, not sure what compelled her to leave dinner halfway through and make her way down the broad, shallow steps into the dark shadows of her prison, past the cells of the many, many people that she's imprisoned and tortured and broken, until she's standing outside the cell of a feverish boy and listening to him plead in archaic.

His voice is soft and weak, like the aftermath of a violent storm that has spent itself too quickly and now lacks the strength to move a single leaf, as if it might break on the next syllable, broken and stumbling over the ceremonial plea in a desperate litany. Faith always returns in our most desperate situations, she thinks to herself, because it's the only way we can convince ourselves that things will get better.

(She already knows that they never do.)

She hears him take a long, shuddering breath, and for a moment there's silence. She wonders if he will begin weeping again, as he wept the entire night before, heaving sobs that wracked his body like a storm raging throughout the night, until, finally,_ finally_, it had broken a little before dawn. Then his voice begins again, tired and thinned with pain, but still audible, and the words echo in the empty recesses of the hall.

_We invoke the Great Goddess in our hour of need for her wisdom and her love._

(In the empty recesses of her heart.)

It's harder for her to remember he's the Thief when he sounds like a boy in unbearable pain, when he's barely conscious and praying to the gods for a rescue that she knows will never come, when she knows with chilling certainty that she has indeed exacted the perfect revenge, that she has broken the Thief. Harder for her to remember that he stole the Gift from beneath her nose, for his queen, the one he serves out of love; harder for her to remember that he's been leaving her notes under her plate, jewelry on her dressing table, and once, the dried petals of an Attolian lily beneath her pillow, so that she woke with its sweet fragrance lingering in the air like a silent promise from the Thief.

It's harder for her to equate this boy with the one who refused to serve her, who turned his head to look at her with that mocking gleam of impudence, whose triumphant smile suddenly made him feel vulnerable, as if the rubies that gleamed in her coronet were glass, as if she was the palest imitation of the queen she sought to be, as if she was slipping back into the shadows, fading back into the shadow-princess she once was. It's harder for her to remember, but of course she manages it.

(_You are more beautiful, but she is more _kind.)

Her attention is drawn back to him when his voice suddenly changes. It appears that he's finally run out of the strength to force the archaic words from his lips. He's whispering something to himself, so softly that she can only just hear the murmur of his voice, the words too low and indistinct for her to make out. She moves closer to the railing, about to lean her forehead against the metal railing for a closer look, but then remembers she's standing in her own prison and pulls away from the blood-stained metal.

(She rubs her fingertips together and wonders why blood is so hard to wash away.)

He's leaning against the wall of the cell, his head resting against the wall, knees drawn awkwardly up to his knees, what remains of his right arm cradled to his chest like a painful secret. He's taken off his shirt, dirty and worn as it was, and she can see the sweat beading on his chest, gleaming in the near-darkness. He's shivering violently, and she looks about the cell to see where he's put the shirt. It occurs to her that perhaps one of the gaolers has taken it, and her gaze sharpens as she looks for the missing garment.

She finally finds it bunched around the stump of his arm, so tightly that it must be causing him excruciating pain. The shirt was far too large for him, and with the fabric wound around his wrist, it almost looks as if he's not missing a hand at all. She clears her throat then, because dust has settled there, making it feel choked and tight.

He turns towards the sound, towards her, and for a moment she's utterly still. Then she realizes that his gaze is unseeing, his over-bright eyes too feverish to see anything but nightmares.

(Which, she supposes, she is.)

Now that he's facing her, it's easier to hear what he's saying.

_Please. Please please please._ _._

She remembers how he begged, how he pleaded for anything other than the revenge she designed for him. She designed it for the Thief of Eddis, and it gave her some measure of vindicated pleasure when she remembered the ancient punishment for thieves, but in the moment when the guard brought down the sword on his shaking arm, when he jerked against the strap and closed his eyes and twisted his lips, he looked to desperately young, his dark hair falling about a face pale with agony.

_Please_, he said in the end. Just _please_.

(He hadn't screamed aloud. His scream had been in those wild dark eyes.)

When she looks over at him again, he's asleep at last, his chest rising an infinitesimal amount with each ragged breath. He's curled onto one side, and as he shifts in his sleep, he jostles the arm cradled to his chest. He whimpers softly, and for a moment she herself struggles to breathe. She forces herself to breathe evenly, smooths the folds of her gown, and walks in even steps away from his cell, back up the stairs, across the moonlit courtyard into the palace, back to her bedroom, where Phresine is waiting with a brush, a goblet of wine, and an unspoken admonishment in her eyes.

She doesn't sleep that night. He's stolen that from her too, even with only one hand.

_What could you steal for me, Thief?_

_Anything. I can steal _anything_._

(She wonders what else he's stolen from her, and when she will notice its loss.)


End file.
